The present invention relates generally to cloud computing and relates more specifically to providing information technology resiliency for cloud-based services.
Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (e.g., hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (e.g., the Internet). For instance, an enterprise (e.g., a business or other organization) may move a portion of its information technology (IT) infrastructure to “the cloud” as a means of simplifying maintenance of the IT infrastructure and providing resiliency (i.e., availability of data in the face of infrastructure outage).
Conventionally, the burden is on the customer to provision their cloud-based services for resiliency. For instance, many cloud-based service providers require customers to complete a risk analysis checklist in order to help the service providers meet the customer's resiliency needs. However, many customers do not actually know how to specify their resiliency needs. Moreover, even if the customer is able to accurately specify its resiliency needs, the service provider may not support the resiliency level required or may exit from the marketplace before the customer's contract expires.